Loyalty, Family, and Sassiness
by The Seven of Us
Summary: [Fury's Stresses 5] Fury is unfortunate enough to have to mediate confrontations between demigod and Avenger. Why did he ever sign up for this job? By Ruby.
1. Curious

**Loyalty, Family, and Sassiness: [Fury's Stresses 5] Fury is unfortunate enough to have to mediate confrontations between demigod and Avenger. Why did he ever sign up for this job?**

* * *

"Nicky! I think your—" Stark cut himself off, quirking an eyebrow at the black-haired man and the blonde woman, both having been chatting easily with the Director before Stark had barged in. "Who are you? I think I would have remembered you if I had met you before. Especially with the balls to have any kind of ease with the Director of Spy of Spies, over here."

Jackson waited a moment, as if expecting Stark to keep going. Fury knew that Stark could have very well kept going. Then the demigod said, "You're right, we haven't met before. My name is Percy Jackson, this is my wife, Annabeth."

Stark's eyes flickered between the two of them, knitting his eyebrows together. "Are you spies, too? Is that your cover? Because you're awfully young—what, sixteen?—"

"Nineteen," Jackson said dryly.

"—to be married, let alone be beaten up like your supposed wife has been—"

"Been saving the world since the ripe old age of eleven," Jackson said, a smile edging on his face, voice even drier.

"—and running _missions_. Tsk, tsk, Nicky, you've been running child soldiers—"

"Fury didn't even know we existed until three months ago, Mr. Stark," the blonde said.

"Well, the Norse version, he did," Jackson countered.

"That doesn't count," she argued. "Thor's an alien demigod with a lot less protection."

That actually got Stark to stutter to a stop. "—and then there's—wait, what? Less protection? The 'Norse version'?"

Fury sighed the long-suffering sigh of a parent with multiple toddlers on sugar. "Stark. Shut up, sit down. That infiltration that I mentioned a while back?"

Jackson waved cheekily. "We're the third party."

Stark looked between the couple, then back to Fury. "These two account for almost a third of SHIELDRA? And half of SHIELD? Please tell me that there are more than four people in SHIELD. You, Agent, and these two?"

Jackson's shoulders began to shake with laughter, before it finally became audible guffaws into his wife's shoulder several seconds later. Chase-Jackson was grinning a bit, as well.

"Mr. Stark," Jackson gasped out, grinning from ear-to-ear. "I take orders so badly that Fury—let alone Coulson—would sooner try to drown me than give me anything stronger than a suggestion."

"That's impossible, Percy," Chase-Jackson said chidingly.

"I know, that's why I said it," Jackson said, beginning to grin again.

Stark looked like he had a million and one questions, and didn't know which to spit out first.

"We're demigods, Mr. Stark," Chase-Jackson said kindly. "As in, Greek-myth demigods, with Hercules and Perseus and Orion."

Jackson said something in another language that sounded foul. Chase-Jackson elbowed him sharply. "Percy!" she hissed.

"What? It's not like they understand Ancient Greek," he argued. "Hell, it's a dead language to the rest of the world. And besides, Orion _is_ a—"

Chase-Jackson gave a full-body twitch that _unfortunately_ landed an elbow into his solar plexus. Jackson cut himself off with a wheeze. "I'm so sorry," she said sweetly. "You know how rebirth twitches are. I'm certain that you were going to say something G-rated, weren't you, _Seaweed Brain?_ "

Stark swallowed a laugh. Fury felt vaguely amused.

"Yeah, of course. He's just a _jerk_ ," Jackson wheezed slightly, somehow managing to get the point across without ever saying an actual oath filled with harsh swear words.

Fury didn't know if Stark would resort to biting his lip to keep his laughter in or not.

"I have questions," Stark announced.

The couple both looked at him, hands frozen from where they had risen to either poke the other or try to make a point.

"How does that work, with the possible DNA differences between gods and humans? Where are the Greek gods? Are they still on Mount Olympus? Isn't that inconvenient? Or can they teleport at will? Who are your parents? If you're married, and since the gods are all related to each other in some really creepy way, isn't that technically incest?"

Chase-Jackson held up her hand to get Stark to stop with the questions, raising her voice over Stark's questions. "If you give me more than _half a second_ , Mr. Stark, I might be able to answer!"

Fury sat forward—some of the questions that Stark had asked, though scientific, he hadn't thought to ask.

"In the order of your questions: gods don't have DNA, technically, so any DNA sample you get from us will only register twenty-three chromosomes, though if you put the same sample into a mass spectrometer, completely uncalibrated, you could theoretically see the other half."

Stark looked absolutely dumbfounded. Chase-Jackson continued, a smile inching across her face.

"The Greek gods, as you know them, have pretty much integrated themselves into the modern world, but a main crossroads for all the gods is the peak of Mount Olympus of old, which sits at the sixth hundredth floor of the Empire State Building."

"But there's no such—"

Chase-Jackson continued without ever giving quarter to Stark: "The gods follow the heart of civilization. It was Greece at one time, Rome at another, the Spaniards in the fifteenth and sixteenth century, Great Britain during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and the first decade of the twentieth century, and America ever since the end of the First World War."

"What about the seventeenth century? And the time between the first decade and the end of the First World War?" Stark interrupted.

She shrugged. "World powers do not secede their place in history so easily. I imagine the crossover was chaotic, and Mount Olympus was technically nowhere during the period of time, though I don't actually know."

Damnit, Fury was supposed to be _used_ to this, but nonetheless, he felt a headache begin to manifest.

Chase-Jackson continued. "Yes, the gods can teleport at will, and no, you won't see it. Or rather, if you _do_ see it, you'll disintegrate into ashes and your soul will go immediately to Hades. Therefore, if you see a random person beginning to glow, I suggest you close your eyes. Dying like that is painful."

"You don't have that experience," Jackson said, looking at her.

"No, but Jason has, and he told Piper to get her to stop asking him if she gave him brain damage."

"What? How would that have—"

"I don't know," Chase-Jackson said, shrugging. "To either question. But it did get her to stop fussing. Well, at least until we got onto the _Argo II_."

Jackson sighed and let his head fall onto her collarbone. "Our friends don't make any sense."

"Nope," Chase-Jackson agreed. "Anyway. Percy here is a son of Poseidon, who is the god of the seas. I am a daughter of Athena—"

"Isn't she—" Stark gulped loudly and shut his mouth at the rather impressive glare Chase-Jackson was levelling at him. Then she turned her glare onto her snickering husband.

"I won't say anything! I said I wouldn't, didn't I?!" Jackson said, grinning.

"You did say," she agreed. "But sometimes, Seaweed Brain, that doesn't always work to keep your mouth shut." She turned back to Stark. "The circumstances of my birth are complicated enough to comprehend amongst those of us—" she glared at Jackson for good measure "—used to Bizarre and Magic, let alone to someone vested in science."

"Got it," Stark said solemnly. "Something that will make absolutely no sense to the science-invested, and will bend my mind into undoable knots."

"And as for the last," Jackson said, smiling wryly. "You're right that I'm technically married to my second cousin, once-removed. But there's the whole gods-don't-technically-have-DNA schist."

Stark did a double take. " _Schist?_ "

"It's an inside joke," Chase-Jackson said. "One of our friends has a gift for seeking out precious metals, and there was a large chunk of schist that ended up saving her life."

Stark shook his head minutely. "How large are we talking?"

Chase-Jackson looked at her husband questioningly. He chewed on his lip. "Um…well, the Chex-Mex Cupids only came up to my knees—"

" _What?_ " Fury asked incredulously.

"Don't ask," Chase-Jackson said immediately.

"—and when Frank and I finally found Hazel, she was standing a solid two or three feet taller than me. So probably three feet tall? Four feet tall? About the same in diameter. She was pretty well situated, sword out and everything."

Stark was still stuck on _Chex-Mex Cupids_ , only half-listening to the rest. "That must have been a small fortune, but _Chex-Mex Cupids?_ "

"Didn't I just tell you to not ask?"

"I know, but that kind of description—"

"They're spirits of grain, called _karpoi_ ," Chase-Jackson said impatiently. "They look like tiny, chubby men in diapers, only they're the same color as their plant, such as wheat, barley—"

"And they have the brains of a decapitated chicken," Jackson muttered.

"Well, yes," Chase-Jackson admitted. "They're normally quite harmless in comparison to most things that want to take over the world—"

Stark barked out a laugh, and Fury rubbed his temples. "You two, out. I've had my max of demigod shenanigans today. Go weird out Stark and whale on Rogers."

"Oh! Nicky!" Stark said, turning to Fury. "I wanted to tell you where I found the phone that this fellow was using."

Fury glanced at Jackson, who looked like he was biting back a laugh. "Why did it take you _this_ long, Stark?"

"Because I thought someone had re-routed the signal," Stark admitted. "I kept trying to break through firewalls."

"I'm not that technically advanced, Stark," Jackson said dryly.

"Where was it?" Fury sighed.

Stark looked at a silently-laughing Jackson. "In Hong Kong. You know, I looked for plane tickets. Even ships. Not once was there any hint of someone who might _possibly_ have ties to SHIELD."

Jackson was now _howling_ with laughter.

His wife sighed, a smile tugging at her lips. "Stark, we have gods that owe us favors. Getting to the other side of the world in half an hour and back isn't very difficult." She easily lifted herself up from her husband's lap and back into her wheelchair, undoing the brake.

"Why is she in a wheelchair? Why are you in a wheelchair? You don't look like someone who would stand being in one for any…"

Stark's voice trailed off as the three went out of earshot without a glance in Fury's direction.

Although, he did almost flinch when Chase-Jackson's voice echoed down the hallway with: "STARK! I died and came back to life whilst pregnant! That's hard even—"

Fury rubbed his temples and wondered if he ever would actually get used to demigods.

* * *

 **No, no you won't get used to it. Ever. XD**

 **In other news, please thank kookiepup12 on AO3 for finishing the title for me. I couldn't come up with anything. :/ I'll post the next piece of this next Friday.**

 **Toodles!**

 **Ruby**


	2. Competent

Fury realized that he had never really faced fear until he encountered three of the most competent people he had ever known casually gossiping over lunch: Phil Coulson, Pepper Potts, and Annabeth Chase-Jackson. The mother-to-be had yet to begin to show the bump that had miraculously hitched a ride on the coming-back-to-life train that its mother had a traumatic month and a half before. The two women's respective partners were nowhere to be seen, and Coulson had a notepad in front of him and a pen in hand.

"Should I fear for the sanctity of SHIELD?" Fury asked.

"SHIELD's been compromised twice over, I don't think that you have to worry about it," Chase-Jackson said bluntly.

Unfortunate Eavesdropper #1 spewed her drink at Unfortunate, Arbitrary Agent #1.

Fury made a mental note to send Unfortunate Eavesdropper #1 back to Level One until she could get her reactions under control.

"How reassuring," Coulson said.

"Come sit with us," Potts invited. "Annabeth was telling us about her fellow demigods, and what to do if there's a fight that they use their powers in."

"How does this relate to Stark Industries?" Fury asked.

"I have two siblings that work in R&D," Chase-Jackson said. "And another one in SI's Legal Department."

"I'm going to start redoing application forms," Potts muttered. "Apparently, specifying gender isn't enough. Specifying species might be."

Chase-Jackson looked apologetic. "Hiding our existence is _first_ nature, Pepper. We aren't just going to check the Demigod box and move along. Unlike Thor, we did generally grow up in the normal world. We have the means to erase our existence off of every written and electronic medium."

"Tell me more about the Mist," Coulson said.

"Yes, please. And why aren't _we_ affected?" Potts asked.

Chase-Jackson snorted. "Hold onto your socks, the Mist is weird by anyone's standards."

Fury sighed.

She leaned back, linking her hands over her stomach and propping her elbows on the armrests. "I know that Percy's tried explaining the Mist to the Director, but the Mist kind of defies explanation. It's a curtain, meant to divide the mundane from the divine and keep them separate. People with a foot in both worlds—like myself—have the ability to influence it. But the thing is, the Mist keeps people from _observing_ , not necessarily from _seeing_." Chase-Jackson wrinkled her nose. "Percy made a theory, a while back, after talking with his mom, who is fully mortal. Sally is one of the unusual mortals that have a limited ability to influence the Mist as well, but only to the point of being able to see through it, not do all the tricks that demigods can do."

Potts startled, sitting up straight. "It's not normal, being able to see through it?"

Chase-Jackson waved her off. "I'm getting to you and SHIELD as a whole, don't worry. Percy's theory actually covers all the exceptions to the rule that we've found so far, so I'm pretty proud of my Seaweed Brain."

Coulson's bland smile twitches in amusement.

"The normal exceptions are as follows: kids, traumatized teens that want to believe in anything but reality, rigidly logical or extremely observant people, and seemingly random adults," Chase-Jackson said, ticking them off her fingers. "There are two exceptions in living memory to that, and both were related to the Oracle at Delphi, so we won't get into that."

Fury can read the precise cursive of Coulson's notes even upside down: _Look up: em-poh-sigh, ambrosia, Hesperides, Oracle at Delphi_

"The prophet?" Potts asked.

Chase-Jackson hesitated. "Sort of. Remind me, I'll explain later. It generally boils down to open-mindedness, and what experiences have shaped your life, and even what you do for a living. Most of the adults that we know that see through the Mist were either forcibly yanked after their child risked their life to keep them safe, or they were artists, detectives of some sort, or one of the highly secretive alphabet soup agencies. The latter two rely on Holmes's motto of _whatever remains, however unlikely, must be true_ , and the former vividly imagine all sorts to put them to paper, canvas, stone, or clay."

"So what happens now that superheroes and Norse demigods and…and humanoid spiders and flaming men are the norm?" Potts asked. "Does the Mist still work on people, even though all the other weird things are happening?"

Coulson looked up from his notes. Fury nodded. That was a good question.

"It's hard to tell," Chase-Jackson said. "Fear clouds memory, and the Mist helps. If it weren't for the fact the Chitauri were clearly from space, it could have just as easily been our monsters under a really rotten disguise." She paused. "There was also the fact that they targeted the mortals just as much as they did the demigods, which normally doesn't happen."

"Monsters?" Coulson asked.

The blonde rubbed her forehead.

Good. At least Fury wasn't the only one with a headache.

She sighed. "You two might understand more than Pepper," she said, nodding to Fury and Coulson. "You work in a world of spies, where for every spy you send out, there's another spy on the opposite side. They can look however they want: black, white, tan, tall, short, skinny, fat, bald, afro, male, female. They don't even have to appear human. Percy's hellhound showed up in the middle of exams once when he was fifteen and she looked like a poodle to the rest of the class, despite Mrs. O'Leary being the size of a garbage truck."

Potts clapped a hand over her mouth, clearly amused and slightly alarmed.

"So your spy manages to kill the enemy spy," she explained, waving her hand in the air dismissively. "And then your spy goes on to kill more enemy spies. But then, one day, and it might be a week or a decade after you killed the enemy spies, they come back, and they come to kill your spy, and possibly any of your other spies if they possibly can, until one of the enemy spies kills yours, and your spies don't come back like the enemy's do."

Potts looked aghast. Coulson looked grim, and Fury was pretty sure that his own face was doing something.

Chase-Jackson paused. "Well, not normally. I'm a rather significant exception." She paused again, looking hesitant. "Most monsters infiltrate schools and daycares. It's, um…the most likely way to find children of the gods. We normally don't make it out of school for this reason."

"The _teachers_ are—"

"Only sometimes," the blonde said hurriedly. "More likely, especially nowadays, they go for being fellow students. Percy played a lethal game of dodgeball in seventh grade." She dragged her hand over her face. "Boy, that was a _mess_."

Potts looked terrifyingly blank. "You keep referring to Percy. What about you?"

Chase-Jackson's smile was mildly terrifying. "I ran away when I was seven after my father tried to deny the Chase's legacy and he and my stepmother refused to believe me when I would roll out of bed covered in spider silk because of the rivalry between Athena and Arachne. I got my GED when I was fourteen through less-than-legal means. Mostly because I don't exist beyond two years of private schooling and—now—a marriage license."

Coulson groaned. "No wonder you people are hard to track down."

"Even better, I was carried to my father's doorstep in a golden cradle borne on the West Wind," she added.

Fury was actually surprised at his own control. There was nothing more that he wanted other than to crack his bald head against the table in front of him and lose himself in hysterical laughter. Every time he thought that he might have these people somewhat defined—someone decided to correct him and say something along the lines of _haha, got you again!_

Potts reached up and smoothed her hair. "Is…everything in your world like this? Incredible and incredibly dangerous?"

Chase-Jackson appeared to consider this. "Well, at Camp Half-Blood, the rules for Capture-the-Flag explicitly state that no maiming is allowed. We have a climbing wall that tries to shake you off, throw boulders at you, and dumps lava on your head if you don't move fast enough. Archery practice is lethal to anything _but_ the side of the barn with Percy there. We do have a lake. The naiads are nice, if a bit ditzy."

Coulson looked at Potts, who looked vaguely despairing. He said, "In other words, yes."

Chase-Jackson looked entirely too amused.

* * *

 **I LIVED! (We're gonna diiiiiiiiiiiiiiie...)**

 **Aka, sophmore year of college. Love you guys! In case I miss responding to some people, allow me to assure you that I read each and every review and adore each of them.**


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